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The Carbon Savings Account™ is the key to a greener and wealthier future

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Implementing simple energy- and water-efficiency upgrades in US households would save nearly $200B per year in residential utility bills.

Unfortunately, these upgrades are often unaffordable or inaccessible for the average US home.

Growing up in West Virginia, my community was largely part of the 1/3 of Americans who can’t afford their energy bills, let alone the efficient home tech upgrades that would make these bills affordable.

This is why Kaitlin Highstreet and I founded Scope Zero, where we created the Carbon Savings Account™, or CSA. The CSA is similar to a health savings account, where employers and employees both contribute funds to the account. With the CSA, the employees use the money for home technology and personal transportation upgrades that reduce their utility bills, fuel spend, and carbon footprint.

CSA-eligible upgrades include everything from Energy Star refrigerators, low-flow showerheads, smart thermostats, and LEDs, to home solar and EVs.

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environment

Innovation

This organization is revolutionizing food supply chains to minimize waste

Spoiler Alert pairs CPG manufacturers with discount retailers to keep food out of landfills

Members of the Spoiler Alert team volunteer at Waltham Fields Community Farm in Waltham, MA

Nearly 120 billion pounds of food go to waste in the U.S. each year. This waste not only contributes to food insecurity, which millions of Americans are impacted by, but also has a detrimental impact on our climate. In large part, this comes down to a misallocation of resources.

We need to bridge the gap between food waste, the planet, and those in need. By doing so, we can drive sustainable food systems and get food to those who need it most. In fact, Project Drawdown has found that reducing food waste is the number one most impactful solution to climate change.

The foundations of Spoiler Alert were laid during my time at MIT Sloan in 2013 when I met my soon-to-be co-founder Emily Malina. With my consulting experience with brands and retailers on carbon, water, energy and waste initiatives and Emily’s background in supply chain transformation and technology adoption, we knew there was a supply chain solution that could help businesses better manage their food waste. That’s when we started Spoiler Alert.

Ricky Ashenfelter & Emily Malina, Co-founders of Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert is a B2B waste prevention software that helps CPG brands better manage excess and short dated inventory. This inventory arises from various sources, whether that’s overproduction, unsuccessful innovations, seasonal items, or promotional packaging.

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planet

Planet

Ammonia will play a major role in fighting climate change

The emission-free fuel is key to decarbonizing maritime shipping. Here’s why.

Amogy CEO, Seonghoon Woo, with the tugboat that is being retrofitted with Amogy’s ammonia-powered technology

The world economy runs on maritime shipping. More than 80% of international goods by volume are transported by ships, which together weave the essential fabric of the global supply chain.

But all of that shipping comes at a high cost to the climate: Right now, every ship is powered by carbon-emitting fuel, which means maritime shipping is responsible for an estimated 3 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Curbing those emissions as soon as possible—and fully decarbonizing the industry as a whole—is an important piece of the worldwide project to fight climate change and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Just to get on track, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has concluded that international shipping emissions must remain steady through 2025, then decline by three percent annually until the end of the decade. And the average lifespan of a shipping vessel is 25 years, which means that ships built from 2025 onward will need to run on zero-emission fuel or be powered by engines that are convertible to zero-emission fuel.

We need to build ships that can run on zero-emission fuel, we need to build them as soon as possible, and we need to scale up the production of fuel that will keep those ships running efficiently.

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planet

Sustainability

A new material made from seaweed will transform the entire textile industry

Kelsun™, Keel Labs’ flagship product, is combating textile waste and turning the fashion industry (and potentially beyond) into a more sustainable economy.

Fashion is one of the planet’s biggest polluters – up to twenty one billion tonnes of textiles and materials end up in landfills every year, accounting for up to 10% of global CO2 emissions.

As a designer working in fashion and seeing first-hand the amount of waste and pollution generated by the industry, I recognized that the materials throughout our most fundamental items were simply too harmful to reconcile. Rather than continuing to contribute to the problem, I set out to make a change, starting with the building blocks of garments: fibers, yarns, and textiles.

My co-founder, Aleks Gosiewski and I founded Keel Labs with a mission to harness the radical potential of our oceans to positively impact the fashion industry and the world. The actualization of this mission is steadfastly rooted in our belief that we can transform our planetary health by combining material science and design thinking in collaboration with nature.

Our flagship product is a yarn called Kelsun™ made from abundant polymers found in kelp. By connecting planet-positive resources with the existing textile supply chain, we are able to help brands transform their models into the circular economy.

Because seaweed is vertically farmed in the ocean, sequesters carbon at a rapid rate, and is one of the most regenerative organisms on the planet, Kelsun™ has a lower environmental footprint than conventional fibers currently available on the market.

Kelsun™ also bypasses the environmental detriments of conventional yarn production. With a production process that uses no harmful chemicals, minimal water, and does not create toxic by-products, the result is a cleaner manufacturing process for people and the planet. Furthermore, Kelsun’s production is a drop-in solution for existing yarn and textile production infrastructure—enabling vast potential for scale.

As a collective of scientists, designers, and innovators who are fighting against material waste, we are building a healthy relationship between nature and the human ecosystems.

By using seaweed, which is not only a renewable source but also carbon sequestering, we are changing the textile ecosystem and creating a more sustainable and circular future.

Tessa Callaghan is a guest contributor to Upworthy and co-founder and CEO of Keel Labs.

planet

This map will let you look at the world a little differently — and a lot more accurately.

Here's a map of the Earth.

Photo via Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Narukawa Laboratory.

It might look weird, but it's actually one of the most accurate world maps ever created.

Every continent, country, and ocean on this map is drawn to be proportionally accurate. It's as close as possible, size-wise, to the real thing.

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planet

Spoiler Alert pairs CPG manufacturers with discount retailers to keep food out of landfills

The emission-free fuel is key to decarbonizing maritime shipping. Here’s why.

Kelsun™, Keel Labs’ flagship product, is combating textile waste and turning the fashion industry (and potentially beyond) into a more sustainable economy.

Scientists are fed up. And on April 22, 2017 — Earth Day — they're taking their issues to the streets.

1. Attend a local satellite march.

2. Don't see a satellite march near you? Start your own.

3. March virtually.

4. Make a kick-ass sign for your yard.

5. Spend time on Saturday reading, subscribing to, and sharing articles from science publications.

6. Buy books that support real science.

7. Share this powerful video of Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining why science is what helped make America great.

8. Donate.

9. Know someone who is going to D.C. for the march? Chip in to help them cover gas or lodging.

10. Share the marcher pledge on your social media channels.

11. Support teens and young people who love science.

12. Buy a science-march-themed hat on Etsy.

13. Take a few minutes to donate to the groups doing so much to keep science a priority on the national radar.

14. Shop march merchandise.

15. Do your leaders in Washington care about science? Find out, and then set a reminder on your calendar to make sure to vote!

16. Find a cool science project to sponsor on DonorsChoose.

17. Fight for local solutions to scientific or environmental problems in your own backyard.

18. Even if you're stuck in front of a computer screen for the day, you can use the #MarchForScience hashtag.

No matter where you are on the globe this Earth Day, you can make a difference when it comes to standing up for science.

Forests are downright magical.

Here are 11 otherworldly forests to remind you just how incredible life on Earth really is:

1. Bamboo Forest, Japan

2. Otzarreta Forest, Spain

3. The Blue Forest, Belgium

4. Redwood National Park, United States

5. The Black Forest, Germany

6. Amazon rainforest, Brazil

7. Jiuzhaigou, China

8. The Daintree Rainforest, Australia

9. Avenue of the Baobabs, Madagascar

10. Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Costa Rica

11. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, China

Those were just 11 of the world's most magical forests. But really, this list could go on and on ... and on.

Here's a map of the Earth.

It might look weird, but it's actually one of the most accurate world maps ever created.

This map addresses a problem cartographers have been scratching their heads over for centuries: How exactly do you make an accurate map of the world?

For hundreds of years, the answer has been this:

Narukawa's map takes a new approach. It unfolds the globe in a way that more accurately represents each landmass.

There's even a version you can print out and re-fold into a spherical globe.